Abstract
Habitat loss and fragmentation would often induce delayed extinction, referred to as extinction debt. Understanding potential extinction debts would allow us to reduce future extinction risk by restoring habitats or implementing conservation actions. Although growing empirical evidence has predicted extinction debts in various ecosystems exposed to direct human disturbances, potential extinction debts in natural ecosystems with minimal direct human disturbance are little studied. Ongoing climate change may cause habitat loss and fragmentation, particularly in natural ecosystems vulnerable to environmental change, potentially leading to future local extinctions. Recent climate change would lead to extended growing season caused by earlier snowmelt in spring, resulting in expansion of shrubby species and thereby habitat loss and fragmentation of mountainous moorlands. We examined the potential extinction debts of species diversity and functional diversity (FD; trait variation or multivariate trait differences within a community) in subalpine moorland ecosystems subjected to few direct human disturbances. Plant species richness for all species and for moorland specialists were primarily explained by the past kernel density of focal moorlands (a proxy for spatial clustering of moorlands around them) but not the past area of the focal moorlands, suggesting potential extinction debt in subalpine moorland ecosystems. The higher kernel density of the focal moorland in the past indicates that it was originally surrounded by more neighborhood moorlands and/or had been locally highly fragmented. Patterns in current plant species richness have been shaped by the historical spatial configuration of moorlands, which have disappeared over time. In contrast, we found no significant relationships between the FD and historical and current landscape variables depicting each moorland. The prevalence of trait convergence might result in a less sensitive response of FD to habitat loss and fragmentation compared to that of species richness. Our finding has an important implication that climate change induced by human activities may threaten biodiversity in natural ecosystems through habitat loss and fragmentation.
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Acknowledgements
We thank our laboratory members for helping with field work, especially Yuki Iwachido, Misa Nambu, Issei Nishimura and Yutaro Yoshitake. We also thank Koji Yonekura for advice on species identification. This work was funded by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B (no.18H02221 and no. 20H04380) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
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This work was funded by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research B (nos. 18H02221 and 20H04380) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan.
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D.M and T.S conceived and designed the study. All authors collected the data. D.M. analyzed the data. D.M and T.S wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors contributed to the revisions.
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Makishima, D., Sutou, R., Goto, A. et al. Potential extinction debt due to habitat loss and fragmentation in subalpine moorland ecosystems. Plant Ecol 222, 445–457 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-021-01118-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11258-021-01118-4